How
many dinners, lunches or encounters have you attended where someone
uses a napkin to explain an idea? During the past three years these
plain white pieces of paper have been the center of many discussions.
They have been indispensable in my explanations on the business of photography
and how photojournalist can compete in a fast changing industry.

Referring to some of my ideas, David Friend, Editor
of Creative Development at Vanity Fair Magazine and long-time champion
of photojournalists, wrote, “It's better discussed over drinks,
or dinner, with you plodding along, taking me by the hand, and drawing
little pictures on napkins. “ Those napkin discussions have won
him over to the need for small agencies and photojournalists to band
together in new ways. Most recently he encouraged me to write about
it. “Why don't you write a piece on your concept for the Digital
Journalist,” he said in an email. “You could talk about
the late-night sessions & dinners & drinks, the 'go-it-alone'
attitude you found at Perpignan, occasional discussions with the big
boys (Corbis, if you want to even bring that up)--and just lay out the
vision.”

Indeed, my latest napkin conversations where held
in Perpignan, France where topics ranged from, never-give-up attitude
to what-the-hell-can-we-do. Small new agencies, seasoned photojournalist
and even some of the bigger independent agencies will serve their future
well by sharing the load. Specifically, through cooperative efforts
involving technology and marketing.

Sharing technology costs would reduce expenses and
give even the lone photographer great technology. Cooperative marketing
plans could pool monies to reach specific or general market segments
and the traditional representation of images would be made infinitely
easier since all the scans and data would be on one technology.

Then there’s the client. Independent agencies
and need to respond to client needs. Photography has changed from a
very personal world of connections and hand shakes to technology and
contract. This doesn’t mean the personal is out. In business,
the personal is never out and that’s exactly our advantage. Even
though some very client-oriented employees working for large companies,
it’s hard for corporations and big-ass databases to be personal
by design they create structures that thrive on efficiency and mass-market
decisions. Many sales at lower rates make more money than a few sales
at higher rates.

We shouldn’t be fooled; Corbis and Getty want
all the sales. They will be formidable competitors. They will learn
to do things right, but a demand for an alternative will always be there.

Our client, the person at the other end of the telephone,
or our web site needs to know that someone at Aurora is there to help
them with quality photography and service. They need nurturing. We can
and do give them that, but they want more.

They don’t want to go to five or six or seven
web sites. Would you? Most clients have a large variety of needs, therefore
the must have broad archives and relatively new material. Over French
table wine while we waited for a sidewalk bistro dinner, I asked two
photo editors, one from Time Magazine and one from US News, what would
they like to see happen with today’s editorial photo agencies.
Both of them replied, get agencies on the web under one search. We compete
already, but are having a tough time. Let’s embark on cooperative
competition, please the client and give them a great alternative place
to search for great photography. In doing so a greater number of clients
will begin to use all the agencies as a collective archive. If our honest
desire is to stay small then we will not suffer since we will never
be able to satisfy all the needs of all the clients.

The problem is all of the above client searches have
resulted in zero images. The list could easily take up pages and pages.
The point is clients want images and they want to work with agencies
that can fulfill most of their need.

For Aurora this problem can only be solved in one
of two manners; grows into a much bigger agency. Something I do not
want. Or smaller agencies, and photographers, connect their photographic
archives through technology.

This second alternative rings true and makes sense.
There are several monumental obstacles. But the initial wall, technology
that allows this connectivity, has been surmounted. Aurora has founded
the Independent Photography Network that can help make smaller companies
and photographers competitive.

It’s time to take out the napkin and demonstrate
a network of connected photography. The big circle represents a collective,
photographer/agency databases and a technology that connects them all.
The smallest circles around the database are photographer web sites
using the collective database. The bigger circles around the database
are agency web sites.

Clients can only enter the database through any one
of the individual sites. They can search for what they want, but if
the site they are searching cannot satisfy them, then the technology
that runs the sites presents the client with images from the network
members. The client is happy to see images that might otherwise not
have been available and if there is a sale, the site serving the images
gets a referral fee.

A common question is: Why not have the clients come
into the collective database and search everyone’s images. Though
that makes sense for the client there are two reasons independent image
providers suffer. First, by default, the database becomes one giant
agency with all the problems that presents and additionally, there would
be no incentive for the independent providers to market their own web
site and their own material.

At Perpignan, I spoke to several agencies and while
there seemed to be interest, traditional reservations seem to prevent
a coalescing. Photographers stand independent by nature and in general
want to take photographs, not manage scanners or deal with web site
administration. Yet, the rules are changing. Like it or not, analog
film has to be scanned, digital cameras will prevail. Publications will
cut back on assignments and photo usage. So that leaves agencies and
photographers with little option but to adapt, or let corporations control
the market.

The network model addresses another growing problem,
the cost of cutting edge technology. With a network of photographers
and smaller independent agencies the costs of providing great and evolving
technology can be shared.

We must look for new markets, work smarter and broaden
our photographic horizons. But first we have to begin to change our
habits and take control of our images by organizing them, caption them
well, make good scans, get releases and push for better sales and distribution
channels.

Groups like EP have demonstrated that banding together
can prove successful. Why can’t photographers and their agencies
achieve similar goals through new business models? Attitudes and habits
are hard to break. Some extra work might be required, but what is the
alternative?

There’s much to be said about the power of being
big and having the cash to market worldwide, or sustain months of losses
during bad times, but there are plenty of negatives as well. As a group
we can be big and stay small at the same time, but it will take a change
in attitude and a willingness to tackle some difficult tasks. One fact
is certain; if independent photographers and agencies must make money.
Our chances will improve dramatically if we connect through cooperative
competition.

Fortunately or not: I can’t afford the class
of restaurant where cloth napkins cover my lap. Can you?

Until five years ago Jose Azel spent most of
his time traveling the world as a photographer for magazines such as
Time and National Geographic. An interest in how computers would change
his visual story telling through new medium pushed him onto an alternate
course. As a co-founder of Aurora & Quanta Productions his desire
is to understand how photojournalism and photography can evolve and
thrive for everyone’s benefit.